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A BBC series called "The Repair Shop" (an oxymoron, featuring morons) succeeded in devaluing a beautiful Edison Opera with their inept, totally destructive "restoration"...
These are some excerpts from Series #4, Episode 21... Hopefully, the poor owner succeeded in suing the BBC for pain and suffering...

Watch in horror as an idiot "woodworker" destroys an otherwise nice, mahogany cygnet horn - "it should be a nice golden color" according to the second idiot on the team (a so-called "gramophone guru")... He summons his "expert woodworker" to help him restore/repair the horn... Give an idiot who knows absolutely NOTHING about restoration, a can of stripper and a power sander and watch the "magic"...

Excerpts from "The Repair Shop" - Series 4 - Episode 21...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I55_KzTZvdM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ih4dq0X6qQ

That hurts to see.
A bad example for do it yourselfers.

James.

they are so proud of there work . Tom

YUCK!

As the only member of this forum who has taken part in this programme (Series 2 : The Georgian Desk) the rape of the Opera is certainly the one they got wrong. I never met the late Gilbert Fury, who had owned the Opera, but I bought Blue Amberols from him through eBay. Blue Amberols were his obsession, and he had a shed full of them.

The woodwork specialist Will Kirk is not an idiot. Far from it. He is a young man unfamiliar with phonographs, who simply did what the so called "Gramophone Guru" asked of him. He carried out a most sympathetic restoration of my wife's 300 year old desk, which at the time was the oldest item ever featured on the programme. In his full time antiques restoration business, his most high profile commission so far has been the restoration of the Duke of Wellington's desk.

http://www.williamkirkrestoration.co.uk/

Woodworking "expert" Will Kirk, may not be an idiot, but if he has actually restored some important things before this he should have questioned the directions given to him and used some common sense. I would never trust him to restore anything other than a piece of IKEA furniture...

All that horn needed was the metal connecting ring to attach it to the lower portion.

Curt A wrote:Woodworking "expert" Will Kirk, may not be an idiot, but if he has actually restored some important things before this he should have questioned the directions given to him and used some common sense. I would never trust him to restore anything other than a piece of IKEA furniture...

All that horn needed was the metal connecting ring to attach it to the lower portion.

He was only obeying orders , where does that lead us ? agreed he should have questioned the order before destroying

When the decision is made to refinish, whether professional or amateur restorers, the first step in the process is to do enough research to determine what the original was like, and what modern day preservationists are doing to create that original appearance.

Curt A wrote: Excerpts from "The Repair Shop" - Series 4 - Episode 21...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I55_KzTZvdM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ih4dq0X6qQ

Scary videos indeed! The pompous so-called guru evidently cannot distinguish a phonograph from a sewing machine. And watching a perfectly nice horn being disfigured makes an adult collector cry. So much for these antique shows and their experts ...

CarlosV wrote:

Curt A wrote: Excerpts from "The Repair Shop" - Series 4 - Episode 21...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I55_KzTZvdM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ih4dq0X6qQ

Scary videos indeed! The pompous so-called guru evidently cannot distinguish a phonograph from a sewing machine. And watching a perfectly nice horn being disfigured makes an adult collector cry. So much for these antique shows and their experts ...

Here he is at work

https://gramophoneguru.com/